Spider-Man Villains: Every Film Villain and Who Plays Them

The main Spider-Man movie villains are the Green Goblin, Doctor Octopus, Sandman, Venom, the Lizard, Electro, Rhino, the Vulture, Shocker, Mysterio and the Scorpion in live action, plus Kingpin and the Spot in the animated Spider-Verse films. Several of these roles have been played by different actors in different eras, so the same name can mean a very different face.

The live action films split into three eras. Sam Raimi directed the first three films with Tobey Maguire, Marc Webb directed two with Andrew Garfield, and Jon Watts directed three with Tom Holland, before Destin Daniel Cretton took over for Spider-Man: Brand New Day (2026). The animated Spider-Verse films run alongside them with their own rogues gallery.

The stories of these villains end in ways that spoil the films they come from, so anyone who has not seen a film yet can start with the Spider-Man movies in order guide.

The Green Goblin is Norman Osborn, the head of the weapons company Oscorp, and Willem Dafoe plays him in Spider-Man (2002), directed by Sam Raimi. Under pressure from his board, Norman tests a performance enhancing formula on himself, and it gives him great strength and unstable behavior.

As the Goblin he kills members of the Oscorp board at a city festival, then turns on Spider-Man and the people close to him, including Mary Jane Watson. Their fight ends on the Queensboro Bridge, where Norman is killed by his own glider. His son Harry Osborn, played by James Franco, blames Spider-Man and becomes the New Goblin in Spider-Man 3 (2007).

The Goblin name passes on in other eras. Dane DeHaan plays Harry Osborn as the Green Goblin in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014), and Dafoe returns in Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021), where the Goblin side of Norman fatally wounds May Parker.

Doctor Octopus is Otto Octavius, the fusion researcher Alfred Molina plays in Spider-Man 2, the 2004 sequel from director Sam Raimi. Peter Parker looks up to him as a mentor, and Harry Osborn pays for his research.

A public demonstration spirals out of control: the reactor runs away, Octavius's wife Rosalie is killed, and four AI driven mechanical arms fuse to his spine. Once the arms control his thoughts, he turns to bank robbery to fund a second reactor. The showpiece is his clash with Spider-Man on a speeding elevated train, where Peter saves the passengers and then faces Octavius unmasked.

Octavius takes back control of his own mind, drops the reactor into the river and drowns along with it. Molina plays Otto Octavius again in Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021), and Kathryn Hahn voices a different Doctor Octopus in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018).

Sandman is Flint Marko, the escaped convict revealed in Spider-Man 3 (2007) to be the real killer of Uncle Ben, played by Thomas Haden Church and directed by Sam Raimi. He is caught in a science experiment and becomes a shape shifting figure made of sand.

Captain Stacy reveals the truth about Uncle Ben, which sends Peter into a rage and into a subway fight where he appears to destroy Sandman. Later Sandman teams up with Venom and helps seize Mary Jane Watson to lure Spider-Man into a trap.

Marko then explains that Ben's death was an accident, Peter chooses to forgive him instead of taking revenge, and Marko drifts away as sand. Flint Marko is also named among the villains pulled into Peter's world in Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021).

Venom is Eddie Brock, a Daily Bugle photographer played by Topher Grace in Spider-Man 3 (2007), directed by Sam Raimi, who bonds with an alien symbiote. Eddie is Peter's rival at the paper, and Peter humiliates him by exposing his faked photos.

The symbiote arrives from a meteorite and first bonds with Peter's suit, which makes him stronger but also arrogant and aggressive. Peter uses the sound of a church bell to tear it off, and Brock takes it on and becomes Venom. He and Sandman then team up against Spider-Man.

Venom is destroyed in the final fight with a sonic blast and a pumpkin bomb, and Brock dies with the symbiote he could not give up. A mid credits scene in Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021) shows Eddie Brock in a bar in another universe, where he is pulled back to his own world and leaves a piece of the symbiote behind.

The Lizard is Dr. Curt Connors, a one armed Oscorp researcher played by Rhys Ifans in The Amazing Spider-Man (2012), directed by Marc Webb. Connors worked with Peter's father, and the spider bite that gives Peter his powers happens in his lab.

Under pressure from his Oscorp boss, Connors tests a limb regrowth formula on himself, regrows his arm and turns into a violent reptilian creature. His plan is to release a gas from Oscorp Tower that would turn the whole city into lizard creatures like him.

Gwen Stacy and Peter work out an antidote, and Peter spreads it from the top of the tower, which turns Connors back into a man. A separate Dr. Curt Connors, played by Dylan Baker, appears in Spider-Man 2 (2004) and Spider-Man 3 (2007), and Curt Connors is among the arrivals in Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021).

Electro is Max Dillon, a solitary Oscorp engineer who worships Spider-Man, and Jamie Foxx plays him in The Amazing Spider-Man 2, the 2014 film from director Marc Webb. After an accident at work, a fall into a tank of engineered electric eels changes his body.

His first big act is a blackout across Times Square, after which he is held at the Ravencroft facility. Harry Osborn breaks him out and the two become allies. Max goes on to hit a power station, where Peter and Gwen flood him with current and kill him.

Foxx comes back as Max Dillon in Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021), among the villains drawn from other realities by Doctor Strange's broken spell.

Rhino is Aleksei Sytsevich, played by Paul Giamatti in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014), directed by Marc Webb. He is a criminal whom Spider-Man stops early in the film, and he returns at the end.

Harry Osborn, held at Ravencroft, tells a man named Gustav Fiers to free Sytsevich and supply him with Oscorp weapons. Sytsevich becomes the armored Rhino and tears through the city, and Peter, moved by a recording of Gwen's graduation speech, puts the suit back on to face him.

That closing scene is the clearest hint in the Webb films of a villain team for later films.

The Vulture is Adrian Toomes, the salvager Michael Keaton plays in Spider-Man: Homecoming, the 2017 film directed by Jon Watts. His cleanup contract after the Battle of New York is taken away when a government group backed by Tony Stark takes over the work.

Rather than hand over the alien tech he has already found, Toomes and his crew turn it into weapons for sale, among them a winged flying suit. At the homecoming dance, Peter discovers that his date Liz is Toomes's daughter, and Toomes figures out that Peter is Spider-Man.

Toomes then plots to hijack a plane loaded with Avengers weapons, and Peter ends it by bringing the plane down on the beach at Coney Island. When the Vulture suit blows up, Peter pulls Toomes out alive and leaves him for the police.

Shocker is Herman Schultz, played by Bokeem Woodbine in Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), directed by Jon Watts, and credited as Herman Schultz / Shocker #2. He is part of Toomes's crew.

He takes over as Shocker after Toomes accidentally kills one of his own crew with a weapon. Peter and Ned study a leftover weapon and trace Schultz toward Maryland, which is why Peter rejoins his school team for a tournament in Washington, D.C.

Peter later beats Schultz with Ned's help during the homecoming night showdown.

Mysterio is Quentin Beck, played by Jake Gyllenhaal in Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019), directed by Jon Watts. He tells Peter and Nick Fury that he comes from another version of Earth and has seen giant monsters called Elementals destroy his home.

It turns out Beck is a fraud and a former Stark employee who uses holographic projections and drones to fake both the Elementals and his own heroics. Peter hands over the glasses Tony Stark left him, which control a powerful defense AI, and Beck plans a bigger staged attack in London.

Peter learns to rely on his spider sense instead of his sight and wipes out the drones. Beck is killed when his own drones fire on him, but his recorded video makes Spider-Man look like the killer. In the mid credits scene, J. Jonah Jameson broadcasts that video and reveals Peter's name.

The Scorpion is Mac Gargan, who appears in Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017) and is played by Michael Mando in Spider-Man: Brand New Day (2026), directed by Destin Daniel Cretton. In the Homecoming mid credits scene, set in a prison, Gargan asks Toomes whether he knows who Spider-Man really is, and Toomes says he does not.

In Brand New Day, Gargan escapes with the help of a body hopping telepath during a tank chase involving Frank Castle. Later Peter's powers start changing, he loses control and badly injures Gargan, and Bruce Banner helps him build a device to suppress the changes.

The film has more going on than one villain, with Jean Grey, Bill Metzger and the Department of Damage Control all in play, so Gargan sits among a crowded set of opponents.

Kingpin is Wilson Fisk, voiced by Liev Schreiber in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018), directed by Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey and Rodney Rothman. His huge collider is tearing open the walls between universes.

He kills his universe's Spider-Man in front of Miles Morales, and Miles later learns that his uncle Aaron, voiced by Mahershala Ali, is secretly the Prowler and works for Kingpin. Aaron is killed, which pushes Miles to take his leap of faith.

Miles destroys the collider and Kingpin is caught in the blast. His allies are arrested and Miles's father Jefferson collects the evidence against them.

The Spot is a scientist turned villain who can travel between universes, and Jason Schwartzman voices him in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, directed by Kemp Powers, Justin K. Thompson and Joaquim Dos Santos.

As a villain he works mainly as a pursuit rather than a personal rival. Gwen Stacy, isolated on Earth-65 as Spider-Woman, is drawn into the fight against him, and chasing him from one dimension to the next is what carries the story to the Spider-Society, the multiversal group led by Miguel O'Hara. Miguel insists that certain canon events must happen to keep realities stable.

The Spot himself is not beaten in this film. His planned attack on the New York of Earth-1610 is still ahead when the story ends on a cliffhanger, and Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse, which Sony has dated for June 18, 2027, is the sequel that picks it up.

The Sinister Six is a comic book team of six Spider-Man villains, and no Spider-Man film has yet shown the full team assembled. The closest setup comes at the end of The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014), directed by Marc Webb, where Harry Osborn tells Gustav Fiers to free Sytsevich and supply him with Oscorp weapons.

Other films gather villains in a single story. In Spider-Man 3 (2007), Venom and Sandman team up against Peter, and in Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021), Doctor Strange's broken spell brings Otto Octavius, Max Dillon, Flint Marko, Curt Connors and Norman Osborn into one fight. That is five villains from earlier eras in one story.

The No Way Home lineup is the largest gathering of Spider-Man villains on screen so far.

My pick for the best Spider-Man villain is Doctor Octopus, and this ranking is my opinion. Alfred Molina's Otto Octavius is a sympathetic scientist whose arms take over his mind, and the elevated train fight in Spider-Man 2 (2004) is the best villain set piece in the series, in my opinion.

1. Doctor Octopus. The tragedy of Otto Octavius, the train fight and his final sacrifice give the character a full arc inside one film.
2. Green Goblin. Willem Dafoe plays Norman Osborn as a man and as the Goblin in Spider-Man (2002), and it could be argued that no later Goblin has matched him. His return in Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021) adds weight.
3. Vulture. Adrian Toomes in Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017) is the most grounded villain, and Peter learning that Liz is his daughter is the best twist in the Tom Holland films.
4. Sandman. Making Flint Marko the man behind Uncle Ben's death gives Spider-Man 3 (2007) its strongest emotional scene, with Peter's choice to forgive him.
5. Mysterio. Quentin Beck's fake Elementals in Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019) turn the film into a trick on both Peter and the audience.

Venom lands lower for me because Eddie Brock gets limited screen time in Spider-Man 3, and Electro and the Lizard are held back by crowded scripts. Shocker and the Scorpion work as supporting players so far. For a newcomer to the series, Spider-Man 2 is the place to start, and the question is whether you agree.